New Cameras

July 21, 2008

As many of you know, I managed to break our good camera... that we had just bought for the trip... only three days into our journey. I have been making due with our video camera that is not really meant to be our solo camera, but frugal travelers that we are, we did not want to buy another one right away as long as we had something. It has done a great job, but almost two years later, it was time to indulge in a real camera again.

Cheapskates that we are, we might have gone longer despite missing the good one, but the video one was no longer reliable. It seems to always go out right when you need it, so that made the decision easy as we really need a good camera for our traveling time. Plus, now we are really understanding the value of our pictures and how priceless they are as many of these places we will not see again & they do a great job of documenting our unique journey. We have been stunned by all the compliments we get on our photography and it makes us want to get even better shots and do more videos.

Our other consideration was the quality of photos for enlargement, since now we are selling some of our photos and wanted to be able to possibly use some for poster size. Mozart also needed a new camera as we have all gotten into photography in a deeper way due to our travels. It is hard to see so many beautiful sights without wanting to capture them on film. She does have a camera which was fine at five, but needed an upgrade now that she will be eight this fall.

We ended up getting a Canon PowerShot SX100 IS as our main camera, which I usually use. For Mozart, we got a Canon PowerShot A460 , although sometimes we also use it as we switch around from time to time, but mostly she uses it. So far we are very happy with both. We will also continue to take some pictures with our Canon Digital Video Camcorder ZR700 , which DaVinci mostly uses this year and we are consciously trying to take even more video.

I was doing most of the photos and video up to this point, but now DaVinci is mostly doing the video as he has become our Youtube and blog movie maker. I tease him and call him "Mr. Scorsese" as he really gets into it these days and loves to make the videos. The imovie on our new Mac makes creating the videos fairly easy and we would make even more on the road if we were moving slower ( or if we were childless..hee hee...these little ones take up time somehow).Mozart loves the videos too, so it won't be long until she is making her own to add to the mix.

The only bad news with this is we tend to take too many pictures and now we have three people taking too many pictures and too much video. Also there were certain advantages ( and disadvantages) to having one camera take all the videos and pictures and we sometimes find it harder when one person has to handle two different cameras to get both. Due to its high resolution, the new camera takes great pictures, but is even harder to deal with as far as storing the photos, which has been the biggest challenge so far.

Some times life on the road is two steps forward and one step back as we teach ourselves as we go. We decided to add a hard drive and burner to our collection of geek gadgets while in Portugal ( where prices are cheaper) to hopefully help out with all the high res pictures and videos that are now clogging up our laptop memories. We love the pictures, but it has added more work and we are still adjusting to the new system that we are forming. The photography and video adds a lot of fun, purpose, and a creative outlet for all of us, so it is worth the effort. It is exciting that some of you have already noticed the difference!

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I ended up with a Canon powershot SD850 when the last Nikon started giving out. I miss some of the scene modes on the Nikon, but refuse to own one without a viewfinder (an endangered species these days.) Did you know Flickr has entered a partnership w Getty to sell images? You have some spectacular ones, would be nice to have the trip become self supporting!

Thanks! Making decisions on which camera is always a bit of a challenge, huh? I did not know that about Flickr. Yes, we definitely want to make the jouney self-supporting.We live on little, so do not need that much to do that.

We still have a TON of great pictures to get up on Flickr and elsewhere. Hopefully, this winter DaVinci will tackle that challenge. Organizing the pictures is a job in itself! ( As I am sure, you know). ;)